Grace

My word for today, for myself, is "grace."  The Beast In My Brain hates grace.  The Beast is much more into the word "should."  

"Should" is just confusing.  When I'm tired and I need exercise and my bank account is low and my apartment is a mess...what in the world "should" come first?  The Beast loves confusion -- confusion is its favorite food.

On an internal level, it occurs to me that grace and confusion are actually opposites.  Confusion says I I have to do everything, all at once.  It only offers pressure, and no help whatsoever in sorting it all out.  

Grace tells me I don't have to do anything at all.  It gives me all the time I need to decide what to do, whenever I'm ready.

I live in the Kingdom of Heaven, so I float in a sea of grace.  I don't have to do anything at all.  I am loved.  I am free.  There are only opportunities, not obligations.

Grace is God's attitude toward us -- always.  We can look into God's face without fear because it always reflects a deep understanding of us and a deep acceptance.  We don't have to do anything to earn any of it.  

The pressure is relieved, and the paralysis melts away, leaving only the "broad place"  David speaks of in Samuel 22:19-20:

    19“They confronted me in the day of my calamity,
            But the LORD was my support.

      20“He also brought me forth into a broad place;

            He rescued me, because He delighted in me.

He delights in us.  Breathe.  Just breathe.  

Here Goes Nothing

Something's gotta give.  My health and my work and my personal world are battling for attention, and none of them are winning.

So I'm going to start...something, but I'm going to have to act like it's nothing, or that weird beast that lives in my brain will freak out and ruin everything.

It's just going to have to be daily, hourly, minute-by-minute stuff, and I hope it's going to take the shape of something I read (and wrote) eight years ago: HERE.

Instead of posting it in order to somehow force myself to actually do it (which of course ALWAYS works GREAT), I think I'll just journal it.  Gently.  So the beast in my brain doesn't catch on.

Here goes.